Long before the Jeju plane crash, South Korea stood up to be a role model for safety.

The Jeju Air crash in South Korea last week shocked the global aviation industry as the deadliest plane crash in recent years. The country is seen as a model for how to transform poor aviation safety practices into the world's best aviation safety practices.

Thirty years ago, South Korea had a dismal aviation safety record. The company's flagship airline, Korean Air, experienced several fatal crashes in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2001, the US Federal Aviation Administration downgraded South Korea's aviation safety rating, saying it did not meet international standards.

Around the turn of the century, South Korea began a major project to overhaul its aviation safety practices, drawing on the experiences of other countries, including the United States. By 2008, South Korea achieved one of the highest scores in the world in a safety audit conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organization. At the time of the crash, the country was considered one of the safest countries for flying.

Aviation safety experts have warned that it is too early to speculate on the cause of the December 29 crash of Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, which killed 179 of the 181 passengers and crew. This was the first fatal accident in Jeju Air's 20-year history, and the worst-ever accident on mainland South Korea. Jeju Air said it would “fully cooperate” with the investigation into the cause.

With a major multilateral investigation underway, experts point to South Korea's experience in successfully improving safety practices, and authorities may ultimately be able to draw similar lessons from the Jeju Air disaster. He said he could not.

Hassan Shahidi, chairman of the Flight Safety Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides safety guidance to the airline industry, said, “Over the past few decades, South Korea, its airlines and government authorities have done a very good job of implementing safety management systems. I was doing it,” he said.

In determining the cause of the Dec. 29 crash, officials said they would look into multiple factors, including damage to the plane from a possible collision with a bird. The plane descended without any wing flaps or landing gear activated, and skidded down the runway at a higher than normal speed.

But another key focus of scrutiny is the concrete structure at the end of the runway that the plane crashed into before exploding in a fireball. Aviation safety experts said the collision with the barrier could have caused numerous deaths.

“The only area we will be looking at going forward after this review is completed is what will happen to the airport,” Dr Shahidi said. “Given the problems with the concrete walls at the end of the runway, this raises questions,” he said.

Aviation safety experts say a concrete barrier built to house so-called localizer antennas, used to keep pilots on the right approach to the airport, probably contributed to the crash at Muan International Airport. He said it could have been fatal.

The space around the runway, known as the runway safety area, is intended to provide unobstructed space for aircraft that may overshoot, undershoot, or deviate from the runway during landing.

In the United States, the FAA specifies that the runway safety area at most large airports must extend 1,000 feet from the end of the runway and 500 feet to the sides. The International Civil Aviation Organization, the United Nations agency that sets global safety standards, recommends a standard buffer zone of approximately 180 to 300 meters (591 to 984 feet) from the end of the runway and at least twice the width of the runway. It is recommended to provide a buffer zone on the sides of the Runway.

All structures within these zones must be 'friable'. This means it must be able to break and give way to minimize damage in the event of a collision. At Muan Airport, a hard concrete structure surrounded by mounds of earth sits about 250 meters (820 feet) from the end of the runway, local officials said.

Dr Shahidi said the cause of the crash would likely prove to be “very complex and unique”. “But runway overruns do happen,” he says. “That's exactly why the safety area at the end of the runway is so important.”

Immediately after the crash, South Korean authorities announced that the fence near the runway met safety regulations. But in the coming days, they added, they would consider whether the placement and structure of the concreted mound needed to be changed.

A series of deadly Korean Air crashes more than 20 years ago prompted South Korea to reevaluate its aviation safety protocols and rebuild to higher standards.

One of the worst accidents occurred in 1997 when a Korean Air flight crashed on the Pacific island of Guam, killing more than 200 passengers and crew. The crash was later determined to have been caused by pilot error, among other factors.

In response, Korean Air launched new initiatives to improve its safety record. It brought in experts from Delta Air Lines and Boeing to help revamp training and other operations. Korean Air also invited the Virginia-based Aviation Safety Foundation to tour its operations.

Korean Air said in a statement that it is “committed to maintaining the highest safety standards.”

Around the time the FAA downgraded South Korea's safety ratings in 2001, South Korea joined the International Civil Aviation Organization's member council.

Kim Sun-do, a former South Korean ambassador and vice minister of civil aviation, said South Korea has worked to bring its domestic operations closer to the international group's approximately 10,000 standards and recommended practices.

By 2008, South Korea had achieved one of the highest scores of any country in the aviation agency's safety audits, and to this day, the country's regulators and airlines continue to “conduct day-to-day aviation operations very safely.'' “There is,” Kim said.

Still, Kim said he thinks there is room for improvement. Officials aim to apply a balanced level of government oversight to all of South Korea's dozen or so airports, regardless of size, but in practice this may be difficult for smaller airports like Muan. He added that there are many.

Kim said the role of the concrete barrier near the runway in last week's disaster remains unclear, but “if it turns out that this was a significant factor in the disaster, related regulations will need to be improved.” .

Kim said he hoped the crash would once again prompt aviation regulators in South Korea and abroad to improve aviation safety. He said that at all airports, “it's a constant battle to eliminate even seemingly minor safety risks.”